Development Cycle Archive

Raising the bazaar price cap is a very good idea, one that I doubt few if any players would object to.

But the 150 vendor item limit seems very low. There are two issues at work here:

1. When the sale time on vendors was increased from 7 to 30 days, this gave merchants an incentive to stock more items. This was beneficial to the galactic economy because buyers would have a greater chance of finding their needed goods on vendors.


2. There is a problem with vendors being used as storage. It is not uncommon to see vendors with many items at prices of "99999999". I doubt that vendors were intended to be used as extra storage, and I can see how this can cause stability issues.

Recommendation: This may be a little confusing at first, and I apologize if it has been suggested already. My idea isto have a sliding price cap on vendors. What this means is that the more items stocked in a vendor, the lower the maximum price that goods can be listed at. An example of a sliding price cap would be as follows (don't pay attention to the exact numbers, I just quickly made them up, but they demonstrate the concept):

• 1-10 items listed = 10,000,000 credit price cap (per item)


• 11-25 items listed = 5,000,000 price cap


• 26-50 items listed = 2,000,000


• 51-100 = 500,000


• 101-200 = 100,000


• 201+ = 25,000

This would allow vendors to legitimately stock their vendors in a reasonable manner, and create a large disincentive to use vendors for mass storage, since it would be too easy for someone to just buy your stored goods. The sliding cap could also be tied in some way to the Merchant profession.

A sliding cap would give rise to high-price specialty vendors (which couldstock only a few expensive items) and the bulk commondity vendors (i.e. the "WalMart" vendor), which would stock many items at low prices.

Haven't read all 75 pages, but if the devs are gonna persist in the vendor limit, I say take away our right to place containers with items on the vendors. I never use my vendors for personal storage. I think it degrades a business to see 'Luke's Stuff 999999999 credits' or 100 different kinds of DNA for 9999999999 credits. I do place customers' custom orders in containers on the vendor and name them 'XXXXX's Order', but this can't amount to a burden on the database. I'd gladly give up that ability to keep the limit at infinity (or at least something really high, say around 1500-2000).

Like I said in my post on page 56, 150 items will turn this game into more work than play and my crafter account will be cancelled if its implemented.

Couple quick points:

Why people currently have multiple vendors?

• Different product types (Furniture vs Harvesters vs Houses? just in the architect line alone)


• Each vendor can only be registered in one of the pre-set and franly not very well thought-out 'product types' for searching on the map. Quick question - Smuggler's slicing gear: Tools or Equipment? I have 2 vendors in 1 spot, registered in each category.

One poster above was talking about how he wanted to sell his (XXX), lots of (XXXX), through the bazaar instead of getting a personal vendor. What then is the point of the merchant class if people can sell large quantities of high cost items without having to spend those precious skill points?

If the issue is the DB size, then please look at the excellent alternatives that have been discussed: Allow merchants to sell from crates/stacks using a cost per unit. Allow for larger crates. Anyitem made from the same schematic uses the same "item attribute" records, so simply allowing both of these combinations would free up large chunks of database real estate. I know these two combined would drop MY 3 vendors, for instance, from nearly 100 items at the moment to EIGHT. If my customers would just let me stock up for a few days it'd be a lot more than 100 items in stock ; I have 3 factories running practically full tilt and I only have 8 items I sell. I think I've "played" 3 hours in the last week that wasn't running harvesters, factories, or stocking vendors on 2 planets.

Another idea: To clear up some of the pure waste on the bazaar, make the sale duration be based on (a) merchant skill level, and (b) asking price. Default of 1 day, + 1 day per Advertising or Efficiency level (or mix it in among the entire class like you did CH levels), maybe +1 day forevery other Artisan:Business box, too. Add another day if the item is asking price over 1000cr, and another it it's at the cap (3k/6k, whatever). Anything offered for sale under 100cr that doesn't get sold gets destroyed rather than recycled back to the owner's "pickup" box. Make auctions 3 days not a week, and remove the cap entirely from auction sales, but again, destroy the item if unsold after 3 days.

I must fully support the idea of not allowing people to drop merchant skill levels and keep their vendors. Should I be allowed to keep the weapon certifications I earned in a profession I gave up, or the special moves? Here's an idea then. You can keep your vendor, even if you don't have sufficient Merchant skills to recreate it. But you shouldn't be able to perform any admin functions on it whatsoever. It's no longer under your control because you don't have the skill to control it. Just like if a CH gives up some levels, they shouldn't be able to control the same pets as before. The pet's in the datapad, it's just not callable. Your broken vendor at least will continue to sell the wares you have placed before you "went out of business".

Meanwhile, can we also address some of the issues like Map Registration? The vendor I have registered on the planetary map, that I assume I'm paying a full day's higher maintenance cost for that registration, doesn't appear on the map until someone enters my store the first time after the daily server reset? You have GOT to be kidding me, right? You put the vendor planetary map registration initialization routine WHERE?? That should be part of the basic server startup code, not in the "on_player_enter" subroutine! Most days I don't get online till 10pm or so, so unless someone happens to see my store sign as they're wandering by and comes in, my vendor registration awaits my personal attention?!?

/bonk

Anyway, 'nuff with the bad. Lot of good stuff in this game. Just please vette the core mechanic changes you're considering more carefully before deciding "this is the way it is going to be, period". Italso bothersme that the discussion period was announced as being through 1/16 yet the decision to impliment a vendor item cap appears to have been finalized nearly a week before the deadline. My reading of this thread shows the cap limit (at all, not just at 150 items) to be getting a majority negative response.Saying "in response to your comments the 150 cap is being increased" doesn't jibe withso manypeople being against ANY cap. I mean, granted, having a larger cap means you're likely to lose fewer players than a lower cap, but can't you investigate the alternatives that have been raised first before you bring out the nerf stick?

Thanks.

I would not go above 6,000, keep the crafter's goods on the vendors and out of the bazaar... example vehicles, deeds, and valuable resources, and also keep a focus on what you normally find in vendors vs. what types you find on the public bazaar.

As for the vendors... stability and technical issues should be very important as a priority... the vendors as they are are buggy as h e l l, pardon my French. If someone, like myself, is into mass production and sales, then they should have the ability to have more than one vendor. Price of doing business. So yeah, 150 max brings us stability, but its 150 per vendor right? That's even better for the consumer, who now might see more specificity in multiple specialized vendors at one location, vs. hundreds of assorted crap crammed into one vendor; even if its just rifles in one, and pistols in another. The pistol shopper will appreciate the focus.

Go for it.

I'm against raising the bazaar cap because it discourages people from going to player owned vendors. Why figure out who sells what on a planet if you can just got to Theed or Coronet and buy whatever resources you want?

For player vendor caps, I can understand having to put a cap do to server issues, but 150 sounds pretty low. I would think 200-300 would be better. Also, it does give the merchant proffesion some more use.

Frayshea Treehater, Tarquinas

I have mixed feelings about it all. First off The cap on the Bazaar YAY!!!!! But on the other hand take a closer look at the bazaar. I think that MOST people's eyes on this thread just went (CHAA CHING!!!). I play 4 different characters on 4 of the servers and I started the others when i got tired of my first character being maxed but not having the heart to drop any skills.

On 2 of the other servers I started crafting characters and as such as a new crafter out there relied on the bazaar for my starting resources to craft what I needed and just to craft for experience (grind). When I started this game back in September the bazaar was the place to get almost everything. and it didn't matter if you had 10k or 100 credits you could usually find what you need some place in the galaxy for the amount of credits you had at the time.

Now however on all 4 servers it is hard to find ANYTHING under 2k. I have seen crud tools (-13.98) selling for 3k. Just last night I was looking for Minerals on the bazaar. on a galaxy wide search I did not see 1 lot for under 2800 cr. and the first 3 pages of it NOT 1 lot was under 3k and the biggest lot was 1200. I know I know yous just all want to make credits. But I have witnessed the grinding resources take a jump in price (actually this was pointed out by a friend of mine) That the cost of a grinding material (poo ratings) go from 3cr a unit to almost 4cr a unit. Now i'm not sure why? If anything it should have gone DOWN for the reason that you have a HIGHER BER on your harvesters. Meaning that for the same exact cost as before you are in fact mining MORE resources. Supply and demand states that that should lower the cost not raise it.

My point on this is that on the bazaar it seems the only number people understand is 3000. Now raise the limit or the bazaar and people will learn a NEW number 6000 and I can almost bet that the lots will not increase in size just because the price did. or if they do I doubt that they will double to match the selling cost increase. In the end I believe that this will only hurt the NEW player trying to start his/her crafting profession by buying some poo materials off the bazaar to get started.

My take on vendors being limited to 150 items is as many of the others are. 150 is too low. a big crafting profession (architect, tailor, weaponsmith, armorsmith) will fill this vendor in a heartbeat. Take just a armorsmith for example. They can make 6 diff type of armor plus RIS plus shields. This is about 67 pieces of armor if you just put 1 of each piece on your vendor. Meaning unless you backpack the sets the most you will get on 1 vendor is 2.75 sets of armor. Of each type. This is not going to go over well to the armorsmiths that sell 10 sets of composite a day. And if you want to add a combat class to your crafting class forget it. You have to spend those points in merchant class now to get more vendors.

Please consider increasing the amount that a vendor can hold or maybe as a bonus increase the amount when that crafter makes Master of their given crafting profession? ie Master Armorsmith can put more on a vendor then a Novice. (just a thought)

Thanks for reading,

Dedman

I don't seeing raising the bazzar price limit help other than raise the current prices for objects on the bazzar.

The Vendor limit is only going to mkae things difficult for alot of merchants. As a comsumer I'd hate to goto a different vendor for a continuation of similar products because of a limit restriction. Expecialli on those days when the vendors are slow to load.

If you feel the need to limit the vender it should be at least 300-400.

I hear a lot about Database problems, that we have to many items, "Technical Issues", and what ever else, but I've never heard what the actual problems are. From what I hear SWG is using Oracle Database Software. Oracle should be able to handle this game with ease so I am not understanding the problem.

This is why we are talking about these changes, right?

The vendor changes you want to make have nothing to do with "discourage monopolies and make vendors easier to use." Its about cutting down the items in the DB.

If you want to make venders easier to use, then add a search option so we can search for specific things on the vendors and Bazaars.

Raising the bazaar cap is just trying to smooth things out a bit for the vendor cap your proposing.

I have been playing sense day 1 and have yet to see harvesters working properly, among other things.

Please Fix the Bugs, don't make changes to things that are working. The Big patch before the vehicle patch broke harvesters. The do operate and do what they are supposed to do, but they don't visually show that they are working. So every where I go I see harvesters sitting motionless. That is very discouraging.


Alen
Radiant

The problem with empty vendors has nothing to do with monopolies.

It is a matter of if the owner stocks it. Crafting is time consuming, and if a vendor is
to be properly stocked, then one must spend a good deal of time crafting for it.

A limit of 150 will hurt many artisans. For example, there are over 150 aricles of clothing that a tailor can make. Multiply that by the number of color cominations available and you will easily get thousands of items. How can the tailor expect to make money if he cannot put engough items in the vendor to cater to the perons who wants fushia pants with green trim? The tailor, with a cap of 150, could not even place one of each item he can make on the vendor.

As it is, even with no cap on vendors, It is very difficult to find some items on any vendor.
Quite often I have to find the artisan to custom make the items for me.

If a cap must be put to vendors, then raise it to 500, or change the user interface so as not to try and display all items until the customer checks a box to do so.

If this was to happen in real life, what do you think this would do to the economy? This is more like what you would find in the failed economies of communist state.

What I see is a technical problem on your end, and you are making excuses to find an easy fix by choking the artisans and merchants. With such a cap, why would someone want to pursue a career where his profits are capped?

I suggest you fix your end.

Why not make the maximumnumber of items you can have on a vendor depending on your Merchant Skill Level. Make 150 basic artisan. 200 Novice Merchant. Up to 600 for Master Merchant.

I know the 150 is a database issue (99.9%). However, this might get you there without messing up merchants.

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Lefty73 wrote:

What sort of robust economy are you after? Currently, when it works in SWG (and in most other MMOG's--ATITD not included), the player economy has a very limited depth. It is usally broad, like a village with tradesmen knowing most their customers by name. Production and sales all happen under one roof. This model works, but it is hardly reminiscent of an advanced post-inudstrial sci-fi economy.

By separating production from sales, you are moving forward into a deeper and more complex economy. Instead of "contracting with a merchant" as many do now to have them simply place a vendor, the proposed system will favor a merchant being the active party and actually buying items wholesale from a variety of producers.

Basically, the merchant class will become the official economic middleman class of the game. This could be a great move in a unique direction for MMOG economies adding some more gamesmanship to economic players, especially if production lines become more cross-crafter dependent in the future of the game.

But as Audio hints at, the trading tools are incomplete and tedious since we players cannot always meet face to face for large open trades and deliveries from producer to distributor. As a remedy, I propose that you look at the vendor as the Merchant to Customer tool for transaction while introducing another Merchant employee--for now calleda Stockkeeper with the following functionalities:

* A vendor like entity for INCOMING orders.

* No outgoing orders allowed--no postings FROM the merchant on the stockkeeper

* A scaled incoming volume of items EQUAL to the number that the Merchant owner can post on a vendor (if a merchant can post 300 on any of his vendors, he can recieve a total of 300 items on any stockkeeper)

* Offers to the Stockkeeper are not related to the cap on "offers to a vendor/items up for auction"

* Like a building, the Stockkeeper has a permissions list similar to the entry list on a private structure, which prevents random unknown players from filling your Stockkeeper with 150 CDEF's that you don't want to sell (if you are buying items wholesale, you should at least be in email contact with your supplier)

* Allow theproducer posting items on the stockkeeperto post informationas if it were posted for sale on a vendor including item description. This information would transfer to any vendor owned by the Merchantin the same building if the Merchant player opts to use a "transfer to local vendor withXX% or XXcredit valuemarkup"button on the stockkeeper interface. Items, such as crates to be broken up, could also be paid for by the merchant and accepted as an available item.

Basically, with this additional tool along with the proposed vendor caps, a Merchant could now recieve large volumes of incoming wares from producers, easily markup prices, and turn around and make them to the public at large.

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Lefty, I really like your "Stockkeeper" concept -- I thinkyou're on tosomething very interesting there. As you suggest, it would certainly open up Merchants to be the elite sales professionals. I would suggest, however, that a little more attention be paid to the Merchant side of the equation.

As you've described it,access to Merchant vendors would be greatfor non-Merchants. The combat-oriented player who wants to sell rare items (as opposed tolow-level stuff which can beput on theBazaar)would have an effective outlet for the items they want to sell. They're able to contribute to the economy with high-price items, but don't have to spend skill points to be allowed to participate -- this is a Good Thing for everyone because it captures economic activity that may otherwise be lost.

But what do Merchants get out of it? Furthermore, how are players to choose which Merchant to use? If Merchants have no way to differentiate their services, players not aligned with a PA willeither choose whoever's nearest the big towns, or fight to be listedby the best-known Merchants, neither which is the most economically advantageous behavior. (The best way to ramp up an economy is to increase the number of active participants, not just improve the cash flow of a few who are already doing well.)

Isuggestfocusing on the "markup" aspect ofyour Stockkeeper suggestion: let the Merchant set a commission percentage on stockkeeper sales. Every time the stockkeeper vendor makes a sale, the currently set percentage is deducted from the sale price and added to the Merchant's account.

The result of this would be to allow Merchants to compete with each other on price, rather than on location or notoriety. You'll still get people who'll just find the closest Merchant, or use a Merchant they already know through previous purchases, but others will price shop to find the best deal (i.e., lowest commission). That will tend to spread out stockkeeper sales, encouraging more Merchants to participate and keeping more money circulating in the economy.

(One possible extension of this feature would be to let Merchants set a different commission for each person they allow to use their stockkeeper. This would enable Merchants to set lower percentages for really good customers who move lots of high-ticket items, while not risking as much on new clients.)

That said, good job coming up with the Stockkeeper concept! I think we'd all benefit if the developers implemented your suggestion.

--Flatfingers

P.S. If like me you're interested in SWG moving to a "deeper and more complex advanced post-industrial sci-fi economy," you might want to have a look at a thread I started on that subject entitled "Advanced Economic Systems in Online Games" (message # 938113). I'd enjoyhearing yourcomments on what's there (which I note also includes what I think is a workabledesign for a fairly generalized player contract system).

I just want to put in my two cents as a "customer" of the merchants, and say that I am FOR the 6k raise of the bazaar, and AGAINST THE VENDOR LIMITS

I repeat what many have said here, most players can't log in every single day to stock their vendors, and if they have very sought after items, they will sell out way too fast if a limit of 150 is put on them.

Also to repeat, I agree that the only time I have a problem sorting through many items is if it's all crap that isn't what's advertised on the vendor, and even that can be bypassed by selecting specifically what type of item you want.

Honestly, don't limit a weapons vendor to only 150 weapons, or else people are going to not be able to purchase things most of the time, cause 150 items sells out fast, it's even worse for medical supplies, cause if you limited my usual medical supply dealers to 150 items, I doubt I would ever buy anything from them again (vendor would be empty all the time) and if I got lucky, I'd wipe out the vendor myself, more than likely, unless i was the very first customer after a restock, then I'd take most of it still.

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Thunderheart wrote:

I think Ill be able to get it so that basic vendors have 150 and merchants can earn more slots as they earn skill boxes (which I think is a great idea) and Im checking into the correspondent issue. It probably wont be until next week though.

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Now that idea, I kinda sorta can agree with... though I'd suggest an extra 50 capacity per skill level on the vendors thing, plus more for the elite classes (Armorsmith, Architect, Weaponsmith) etc. If it's only like a differeence of a new artisan with 150 and a master weaponsmith with 200 then there's really no point in any increasing of the limits, cause the limits would still be too low to keep the popular items stocked